


Howl at the Sun

by HyperionScience



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Guns, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Space Pirates, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-08-18 23:26:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20199928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperionScience/pseuds/HyperionScience
Summary: Captain Wilhelm of the newly inducted Hyperion Starship "Enforcer" is on a deadly mission to subdue and imprison one of the last great space pirates in the galaxy. Little does he know that that very same pirate is on a very similar mission.





	1. Intrusion

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was started on June 14th, 2019 as an attempted submission for the Borderlands Mini-Bang challenge. It was the second of three things I attempted to write. About a week and a half before the submission deadline, I realized that this work was going to be far longer than anticipated, and put in on the backburner in order to write something with a bit of a faster plot, a bit less of a slow burn. It is now after the submission deadline, and the third fic has been submitted, and I still have the urge to write. So almost 2 months after the first few sentences were penned (or typed, as it were), I’ve come back to finish it, or at least, bang out the last of what will become the first chapter. I’m especially proud of the title of this one.

Smoke poured into the cockpit, and Wilhelm coughed as it burned his mouth, his throat, his lungs. The smell of burning electronics hung heavily in the artificial atmosphere, the metallic scent familiar, concerning. He checked his sensors, relieved to find that for once it wasn’t coming from him. A light flickered once, then twice, before going out, plunging the cockpit into deep and eerie darkness, illuminated only by the strip of dim emergency lights over the helm’s controls, and by the glowing red reticle of the captain’s bionic eye. Beneath his comfy chair, the ship gave a worrying lurch as if threatening to fall out of the sky, to tumble away into the vast emptiness of space. 

“Wolf. Report.” The captain barked, looking into the thick darkness. His right eye buzzed, the lenses inside shifting to allow what little light remained through. He watched the cockpit spin around him in shades of dim green, through the haze of dark smoke. The unmistakable stench of melting metal and burning plastic wafted in through the vents and doors, carrying with it the acrid, sulfurous tang of deep space. 

The ship’s AI buzzed to life, after several seconds of silence. The model W-07 was older tech, an artificial intelligence he had installed years ago, to keep track of his marks and his bounties. Everything on the ship was varying degrees of aged, including the captain himself, and all of his parts. The fleet’s admiral had offered him new tech upon contract, but he had grown quite fond of his AI over the years, and so he had, in no uncertain terms, declined. 

“Damage to the left hull, area quarantined. Atmosphere stabilized. Air quality declining. Oxygen reserves depleting at a rate of 12 unit-seconds. Estimated 3.17 hours until initiation of stage 2 safety protocols.” The AI model W-07 rattled off in a level, robotic tone, “The source of the smoke is being actively investigated. Designated AI model S-41 is recording to Helio-Cloud Blackbox 11856. Do you have any further queries, Admiral?” 

Wilhelm swore. In this part of the galactic sector, the damage could mean only one thing. He jabbed furiously at the LED display embedded in his wrist. It too was familiarly dated, the blue screen buzzing in low-res, his skin raised and scarred around the perimeter of the device. He was well outside of the area he’d been told he’d find his quarry. The corners of his mouth pulled taut into a deep and contemplative frown, his forehead creasing. 

“Monitor heart rate signals and heat signatures in cargo bay 2, send 20 or so troops in armed to stun.” He delivered the order flatly, coughing hoarsely into a closed fist, the smoke burning its way back up his throat. “And for fucks sake, vent as much of this shit out of here as you can.” 

“Yes sir. Permission to enter battery conservation mode?”

“Granted.”

The cockpit stilled for only a moment, before being filled with the roar of fan blades. The loud mechanical whirr was reassuring; in a greater state of emergency, the Enforcer’s failsafes wouldn’t have allowed them to boot up. Wilhelm stayed seated at the ship’s helm, letting his heart slow back down to its normal pace, allowing the burst of anxiety to smooth over into an insidious, creeping dread. Something, or someone, was on his ship. The certainty only made the realization graver, and it chipped away at him, somewhere in the back of his mind. A quick, robotic whirring came from behind him, and he nearly leaped out of his skin, his heart resuming its erratic pounding against its prison of flesh and metal. 

“Captain! Are you ok?” The admiral asked with concern in his voice as he stepped inside, the doors sliding shut with a woosh and a click behind him. His mismatched blue and green eyes narrowed as he scanned the cockpit, the blue one lighting up, just a little. 

“Yes, Jack, I’m fine,” Wilhelm grumbled, getting up from his chair to loom stoically over the ship’s controls, glowering down at the flashing green and red lights, which blinked on despite their terror. He kept his back to his boss’s onboard clone. It was bad enough that he had signed himself into 15 years of Hyperion work, but the fact that Jack felt the need to send him a living nanny cam was insulting. 

“Captain, please, call me by my locally-designated name. I may be a Hyperion performance assessment tool, but I am also your friend.” 

The clone had been a member of his crew for only 3 months, and in that time, Wilhelm had noted he wore one expression. It was a deeply saddened look, the type that could usually only be accomplished by puppies in SPCA commercials. His eyebrows were always quirked in a look of silent anxiety, and he looked around entirely too much. In short, he was perpetually and terminally nervous. With a boss like Jack, it was hard to blame him for that. 

“Timothy, I’m fine,” Wilhelm repeated, his voice deep and hoarse. His tongue hung dryly in his mouth, the thick taste of smoke beginning to grow even staler, clinging to his teeth. He coughed once more.

The clone blinked, clutching his clipboard to his chest as he wandered into the room. He looked the computers up and down, his blue eye flashing in the darkness. Wilhelm wondered if he should draw him a map. He watched as, slowly, Timothy knelt down in front of the AI hub, removing a cable from a small bag slung across his shoulder. 

“Oh, don’t mind me. Just need to access the blackbox interface.” He explained, plugging one end of the cable into the computer, and the other, more gently, into a small port behind his right ear. Like static, he bristled a moment, his blue eye glazing over with lines of code. 

Wilhelm looked back to the screen in his wrist. He was just grateful Tim didn’t interface with his computers the way the CL4P-TP maintenance droids did. 

Looking at the map on the display, he watched in the reflection as his brow furrowed deeper, his forehead creasing. The dark circles lining his crow-footed eyes seemed deeper than ever, and his organic eye glistened and stung with tears intended to whisk away the foul air of the cockpit. He adjusted the screen brightness, his reflection vanishing into the backlight of the display. 

The thin white lines drew out the course, outlining the sector and indicating the neighboring ones. They were still 2 days travel from Zeta 3, the sector that Jack claimed was the last true bastion of space piracy. Had his mark been in the right place at the right time, or was this a planned ambush? He didn’t know, and it sent a cold shiver down the circuits of his spine. 

Somewhere in the ship, a bang pierced the white noise. 

Timothy jolted back to life, pulling the cable from his head rather abruptly, giving his head a little shake. Wilhelm watched his eyes drift towards the back of the ship, with all the trepidation of a creaking cellar door. 

“Do you have your gun, Captain?” He whispered, staring pointedly at the sliding bay doors. “Because Hyperion fleet protocol dictates-”

He was cut off by the click of a Glock as Wilhelm turned to face the metal barrier. He swallowed. His nerves had settled into a deep simmer, bubbles rippling over the surface of his mind only to be followed by thick swaths of hot, angry shame. He moved it all onto the backburner, he had more important things to do than doubt.

“Stay here. Last thing I need is a bill from Jack to replace you.” His footsteps resounded heavily on the cold metal floor of the cockpit, the smoke all but cleared, though the smell still hung heavy in the air, weighing on his shoulders. The echoes sounding through the ship’s empty halls made the hairs on the back of his head stand up, and with grim apprehension, he worked his way carefully through the darkness. Wires and outlets snapped and sparked in the darkness, hissing ever louder as he distanced himself from the relative bustle of the helm. His throat was dry. He forced himself to swallow. He could not force his aging hands to stop their treacherous shaking, and he swore under his breath.

The hallway doors slid open for him with the touch of a finger and a scan of his retina, the ship opening up to him as it had every day for the last 3 decades. He let his hand linger on the displays, the brushed metal smooth and familiar under his fingertips. The Enforcer was the most valuable thing he owned that wasn’t permanently attached to his body, and walking it’s dimly lit passages brought an uncharacteristic smile to his lips. If this was the last time he would get to do this, he would enjoy the walk with his pride and joy. 

He passed the locked off medbays, and the crew’s quarters, taking a sharp right into the emergency service hatch that led into the hold in the event of an elevator malfunction. The screen on his wrist pinged, and from its holster on his hip he pulled a breathing apparatus, slotting it firmly over his weathered face. The hatch was illuminated by a few harsh fluorescents, slicing aggressively through the darkness. Beneath his feet, the ladder gave a wobble, and with ever-mounting trepidation, he made his slow descent into the ship’s cargo bays. A siren howled, distant and shrill, and Wilhelm closed the hatch over his head, shielding his eyes from the bright emergency lights.

His feet found the floor, the deep and empty sound echoing eerily through the bowels of the ship. The air here was usually stagnant, reeking of engine fuel and PVC pipe, all trapped under too-low ceilings; The captain had to crouch as he moved along the service hatch; but today he shivered in the cold of it, his anxiety mounting another assault as he approached the large bay door of the Enforcer’s second cargo bay. Beyond the heavy metal, he could hear the scraping of containers being pushed along the floor, laughter and jeering, and the gentle, steady hiss of his ship’s precious oxygen leaching out towards the stars. 

A white flag paraded its way through his mind, and he scoffed to himself at the absurdity of it. If only the young man he used to be could see him now, an old man cowering in a service hatch, planning his surrender. He outfitted his pistol with a larger magazine, one of many that hung from a heavy belt he wore slung over his left shoulder. He wouldn’t go down without a fight, Hyperion protocol be damned. The cost of the vessel and the lives aboard were negligible to the admiral, after all. Wilhelm had a more personal stake in the matter.

His nerves aflame, he heard the shallow footfalls creeping down the hatch before they reached him, and turned on his heels, metal arm extending to close it’s cold fingers around the figure’s throat. A glowing blue eye widened as two pale, freckled hands flew to contest the grip. The captain held Timothy aloft a moment longer, eyes narrowing as he pressed a finger firmly to his lips. The clone nodded frantically, and Wilhelm set him down gently. 

“Captain, I have to advise you that Hyperion Space Warfare Protocol #3054 prohibits-”

“Shut up, Timothy.” He hissed, his voice a harsh whisper. He heard a shuffling of feet behind him, the clone nervously pacing in place as Wilhelm’s finger hovered over a large, square-shaped blue button. “Oh, and duck.”  
“Duck?” Timothy’s voice caught in his throat, his question a mere squeak, lost to the sounds of the opening hatch, and the subsequent gunfire. 

A roar erupted from the captain, the barrel of his gun a cold steel eye, surveying the room, weeping lethal tears. He heard laughter and realized it was pouring from his mouth as he watched the intruders dive for cover, and draw their own weapons. Bullets clattered off of heavy metal shipping crates, zipping off into the cavernous maw of the hold. Someone screamed, far ahead of him, and he heard the heavy thump of a body hitting the floor. 

“Captain!” Shouted the clone behind him, and Wilhelm turned to see a masked man grab him by the neck and point a gun at his head, leaving Tim to struggle and gasp for air in the brutal headlock. 

When he turned back towards the firefight, he was staring down the barrel of a gun. A dozen others lurked around, circling like hawks, save the one pointed at the doppelganger. Wilhelm’s eyes refocused, blurring out the firearm so that he could see it’s master. She too wore a mask that covered her mouth and nose, and a dark wide-brimmed hat sat atop her head, perched at an angle so predatory, he feared it might pounce. Long lashed eyes blinked at him, her irises were pools of neon, rings of fire. 

“Surrender,” She said, and the cold steel of her gun prodded insistently at his bearded chin, the steel so ice-cold he could feel it through thick hair. “I don’t think I’ll have to tell you what happens if you don’t.” 

Wilhelm gulped, fear settling somewhere deep in his brain. Behind him, he heard the shuffle of fabric, the sound of someone hitting the floor, gasping for breath. 

Slowly, the Captain of the Enforcer raised his trembling hands, closing his eyes just in time to miss the sight of the cold, hard pistol as it came down hard on the crown of his head.


	2. Chapter 1.5 - Plot Bullshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I set out to write this, the first chapter was initially some very boring worldbuilding for the AU. I ultimately cut it, but decided to include it here in case anyone wanted to see it.

It was true that space had once been thought of as the final frontier. That was over 800 years ago. 

What had started with a 3 man party to the moon had led to bigger and better rockets, interplanetary travel, and galactic colonization. In the centuries since Armstrong had walked on the dusty surface of the Earth’s only moon, humans had moved almost everywhere but, settling into any niche of the galaxy that suited their complex life-sustaining needs. There had been wars of course, but those were things that were talked about in schools, things that lived in the pages of books. Soon the concepts of nations and of land had given way to a slew of corporations, trapped in an ever-growing arms race for control of the most valuable resource humans knew: Money. The weapons of war, things unthinkable to bystanders of ages past became essential, a form of currency. Every sensible person had a sidearm, if only to protect their possessions, their homes, their lives. 

On more densely populated planets there were local governments elected to keep the peace, to stop everyone from arming themselves to the teeth, but the real power laid in the hands of the Manufacturers: faceless organizations with the money, manpower, and ammunition to enforce whatever rules they saw fit. Planets were razed, burnt to the ground in a matter of months, weeks, even days. They were never called wars, of course. Wars had two sides. They were reported in the news as victories, and despite the population drop, business boomed as neighboring planets stocked up, afraid for their own lives. Life forged on in a terrible feedback loop for generations, all while the Manufacturers lined their pockets without having to lift a finger. 

It wasn’t long before the threat of destruction and tales of long-lost treasures lured people to the stars. Vault Hunters took to ships and scoured the galaxy, looking to plunder artifacts of long-forgotten worlds. The Manufacturers began building fleets, hiring mercenaries, and putting out bounties on anyone they deemed dangerous enough to their way of life. The Vault Hunters became the bandits of space, outlaws and pirates, with the self-enforced law on their heels. Anyone looking to make a quick buck followed suit; If this was what the world was going to be, why not try to make a bit of money? It felt good in a way, to hunt outlaws for the Manufacturers; Especially since they targeted each other more often than not.

That was 20 years ago. Wilhelm was a young man, then. But the ways of Vault Hunters were dying, along with their practitioners, and the mercenaries who had hunted them had all but completely vanished as the slowing trickle of bounties began to stop entirely. A few die-hards stayed strewn across the galaxy, pirates and privateers both trying to leech every last cent that they could from a dying art, caught in a dance of sorts, in a game of cat and mouse; but overall, people liquidated. Ships were sold, treasure pawned, and anyone with a shred of sense found a cozy little planet with blue water and warm sunshine to retire to. The Manufacturers had won and would soon begin to set their sights on fringe planets, now that the pipe dreams of starry-eyed mercenaries had been quashed under their heels. Only the true profiteers stayed in the employ of the Manufacturers. There was nothing romantic in fighting a one-sided war. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully there will be more chapters, but as of right now I'm unsure how many there will be or when they will be written. I hope you enjoy anyways!


End file.
